Inside Story: The colour of money

ORANGE

Famous orange brands

Orange phones, Tiger beer, easyJet

Connotations:

Autumn, creativity, harvest, cheap goods (in USA)

Orange mobile phones: Pantone: 151

"It's a non conformist colour and given Orange were late entrants in to the highly competitive telecom market, it was important to make a mark," says Robert Jones of design company Wolff Olins, which was employed to help create the Orange brand.

"Ironically, because of the name of the company, we were able to use the colour only sparingly in the advertising, in combination with black. It was a step away from the use of generic colours, which dominated the product category at that time and which we thought was very staid in design terms."

When Stelios Haji-Ioannou launched easyMobile, Orange filed a suit against him claiming the entry of the low-cost mobile service would confuse customers, an action known as "passing off".

PURPLE

Famous purple brands

Cadbury Dairy Milk, Dyson

Connotations:

Royalty, luxury, mourning

"Purple has ecclesiastical connotations and is used as a shorthand for luxury in some contexts. But it comes in and out of fashion a bit too much for some brands," says Martin Brown, of Wolff Olins. "One reading of its use by free newspapers is to suggest something of high value is being given away."

thelondonpaper newspaper: Pantone: 258C

Stefano Hatfield, editor, says: "Red was out – too tabloid; black too old-fashioned; blue was Metro; green was too associated with environmentalism. We had to pick a colour that would stand out on the streets of London where our distributors are our advertising and marketing. Colours that work on distributor fleeces, for example lime green, orange or yellow, don't work so well in newsprint."

London Lite newspaper: Pantone: 242C

Steve Auckland, managing director Associated Newspapers Evening Division, which covers London Lite, says: "Yellow was considered, but it didn't stand out enough. And red looked too downmarket with its tabloid connotations, so we went with the mauve. Unfortunately, thelondonpaper came out around the same time with a similar colour, which screwed it up. We've tried to differentiate ourselves by getting our merchandisers to wear yellow, which works well with mauve."

RED

Famous red brands:

Coca Cola, Virgin, The Post Office, Communism

Connotations:

Power, energy, danger

The Economist magazine: Pantone: 485

Jacqui Kean, brand marketing director, says: "Red is The Economist brand, it's our logo and also on the masthead . The red box logo on the front cover was the inspiration for the iconic poster campaign created almost 20 years ago by David Abbott. He saw that the masthead was the same proportion as a 48 sheet poster, and so used the poster as a gigantic logo that could carry a variety of different messages to communicate the benefit of reading The Economist. In research groups consumers tell us that they just have to see a red oblong and they think of The Economist.

Vodafone mobile phones: Pantone: 485

Formula one team owner Eddie Jordan attempted to sue Vodafone, claiming it had promised to sponsor his F1 team. The company's defence was based around owning red in the telecom market. It wanted to associate with famous red brands (Jordan's team was yellow).

"Vodafone's use of red has been extended over the years by its use of sponsorship, most notably of Ferrari and Manchester United. And the England cricket team's one-day kit has moved from blue to red, presumably at the sponsor's request," says Simon Heap, creative director of Design for Sport.

"The attempt by brands to associate themselves with team colours can be successful. F1 teams in particular are both willing to go the extra mile for sponsors in terms of integration in their race livery and also to control lesser spending sponsors' impact".

YELLOW

Famous yellow brands:

The AA, Post-it notes, Kodak, Yellow Pages

Connotations:

Hope, happiness, hazard, cowardice

ITV1 television channel: Pantone: 109C

"ITV1's decision to use yellow is questionable because in some markets it is associated with the discount retailers such as Lidl and Aldi," says Martin Brown, of Wolff Olins. "Yellow is optimistic and recognisable, but can be ugly to the human eye," according to David Annetts, of Design Bridge. ITV's view is more upbeat: "This is TV that celebrates life, people, spontaneity and glamour. It [ITV1] may have been around for a while, but it's still the UK's top commercial TV channel. Its programmes are all about emotional moments we all share."

GREEN

Famous green brands:

Marks and Spencer, Heineken, BP

Connotations:

Environmentalism, new birth, spring, safety

BP oil company: Pantone: 348C

BP registered a trademark consisting of the colour green as part of its identity. The colour covers a significant proportion of its service station, and the company used its intellectual property rights to prevent a rival petrol retailer using the colour green, claiming that it caused confusion. The court ruled in favour of BP and confirmed that it is possible to register colours as trademarks.

PINK

Famous pink brands

Smile, Breast Cancer Awareness, T-Mobile

Connotations:

Vibrancy, energy, radicalism, nurturing (pale)

Lastminute.com website: Pantone: 226C

"The bold pink colour was originally chosen by Martha [Lane Fox, co-founder of Lastminute.com].

It was her favourite colour and she wanted us to stand out from the blues, greys and greens that were used by most online brands. It was a bold statement, a vibrant new brand. Since we launched, there have been a number of other bold pinks being used, notably Smile bank and T-Mobile."

BLUE

Famous blue brands:

IBM, Barclays Bank, Calor gas

Connotations

Dependency, competence, conservatism

Barclays Bank: Pantone: 100 per cent Cyan

Lucy Heyes, brand communications manager, says: "In the past we've talked about ourselves being the 'blue bank', but there are a number of other organisations who could equally lay claim to this, so we found we needed to be more specific. If you show people a range of blues and ask them to pick the one that they know as Barclays, they always pick the same colour – cyan.

"Association and recognition of a colour for a brand is very powerful. After your name and logo, it is usually the most recognisable attribute of your identity, but it only comes from being single-minded in its application. As a result, we've focused our use of colour to maximise the ownership we have of cyan."